I watch an awful lot of television – I admit it – but I often find so much of it annoying. Not just the ubiquitous logo bugs on the screen or the intrusive scrolling promos and truncated credits, but the increasing clutter by way of promos and trashy programs.
Tonight, two items that annoyed me enough to write about:
- Promos for upcoming shows could technically be counted as commercials, right? Well, tonight ABC broadcast a SPONSORED commercial. That’s right. A 30 second commercial for next week’s “Wonderful World of Disney” was SPONSORED by McDonald’s. As they put it, “This preview is brought to you by McDonalds.” Followed by “Next week on The Wonderful World of Disney…” then a McDonald’s commercial. Cripes.
- Missed opportunities: I tuned in to “High School Reunion” on WB. I thought to myself, here is a reality program that might be interesting – how have people changed since high school, how have they grown… As it turns out, they haven’t at all. Every single one of the guys said (over and over) that they hoped to hook up with one of the girls. EVERY ONE. They were all complete pigs, still acting like hormone-laden high school idiots. I thought to myself “what losers! Here they are 10 years out of high school, behaving like puerile teenagers and plotting which woman they were going to bed that night.” And I wonder, since they are fixated on their randy activities, do ANY of them have someone back home? Are they all single? Who are they cheating on? Oh, and one more thing annoyed me – the class of ’92? Oh, God, I am so old – class of ’85. In two years it will be time for my TWENTIETH reunion. Not that I have any interest in going – anyone I was interested in seeing I kept in touch with anyway.
